The Legend of Pine Ridge

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Al Gore: We Can't Wish Away Climate Change

Al Gore has an op-ed in the New York Times (2-27-10). Until the so-called "Climategate" scandal, I chuckled when witty, sarcastic global warming denialists on the blogs mocked "Al Bore" for being a fat, hypocritical moneybag. I didn't want to believe in the "inconvenient truth" of global warming. I was in denial. Still, I was kind of worried in the back of my mind that global warming might be true, because all of the national academies of science in the world believe that global warming is happening.

"Climategate" forced me to face my denialism. I read those e-mails and the nasty and mocking commentary about them, and then I read what the scientists actually were saying in their own words.

I'm not stupid, so it didn't take too long for me to realize that the denialists were mocking and hounding our best scientists, lying about their claims, misreporting their words, and mischaracterizing their research. The denialists were acting like the fake scholar Ward Churchill, not like honest researchers. I have posted what I am learning about climate science on my blog.

I do want to know what is true about science, and I could see the denialists weren't debating the science; they were just propagandists who were debating straw men and counting on my desire to remain in denial about the science of global warming, because it is pretty scary. I want to drive my car, heat my house, watch T.V., cook, take hot showers, and wear clean, pressed clothes.

The denialists often accuse the scientists of manufacturing "alarmist" scenarios, but I notice that denialists like the mereticious demagogue Senator Inhofe and the vicious bully-boy journalist James Delingpole are churning out a filthy slurry of alarmist conspiracy theories about sneaky scientists who are conspiring to trick us, steal our money, and set up a world government by spreading the "hoax" of global warming. Their propaganda is starting to read like that notorious anti-Semitic hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, only now the poor scientists are the Jews.

I am now reasonably certain that the alarmists who claim that global warming is a scientific hoax to steal my money are probably really only worried about their money.

I now realize that these shameful denialists are just repackaging the same old conspiracy theories as the Nazis spread about the Jews or the Bolsheviks spread about the capitalists and the kulaks. Since I have a background in Soviet Studies, I should have been onto these propaganda techniques a lot sooner. But I get it now, and I am going to read Al Gore's op-ed in the New York Times (2-27-10) and his website, the Alliance for Climate Protection. I think I will even check out his film, An Inconvenient Truth.Al Gore is probably not a bore. He can't possibly be as boring as some of those conspiracists on Faux News like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. I don't believe them at all any more. Every day they repeat the same conspiracy theory over and over and over and over! It is so boring! They are so self-righteous! And there is never any news!

Al Gore is trying to learn about climate change and share what he is learning with the rest of us. That's what leaders do. I'm sure he makes some mistakes when he tries to translate what the scientists say into layman's terms; but I don't think he is lying to me like Senator Inhofe, James Delingpole, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck.

Now the despicable Senator Inhofe is calling the scientists liars who are trying to "trick" us. He is even demanding that the Justice Department investigate the scientists to see if they have committed research misconduct and crimes.

The conspiracist Inhofe is nothing but an ignorant, arrogant, evil, meretricious prostitute who dresses as a demagogue, peddles junk science, and destroys the reputations of honest scientists.

The Russian tabloid Pravda (11-1-09) has also announced that the earth is cooling and is on the verge of another ice age:

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.

[An] unexpected legacy of Copenhagen is the controversy that arose in the run-up to the conference over whether leading climate scientists have been objective in arguing that man-made emissions are the main factor behind warmer global temperatures.

That controversy, dubbed "Climategate," centers upon e-mails written by climate-change investigators at one of the world's main centers for climactic research, Britain's University of East Anglia. Just ahead of Copenhagen, hackers posted the e-mails on the Internet as alleged evidence of the investigators' intolerance of opposing opinions.Critics of the UN-led effort pointed to the e-mails as proof for their long-standing charge that the public is being led into a costly attempt to manage nature by scientists who barely understand the mechanisms of climate change themselves.

Some of the most vocal criticism took place on the sidelines of the Copenhagen conference. That included suggestions that one of the most quoted phrases from the e-mails, "hide the decline," could be evidence that the East Anglia climate scientists tried to hide data that contradicted their theories. The phrase appeared in an e-mail written in 1999 by the head of the East Anglia Climactic Research Unit, Phil Jones.

One member of a U.S. Senate delegation at the summit, Senator James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma), said the words "hide the decline" meant the author was urging other researchers to "hide the decline in temperatures." The charge was rejected by the climate researchers at East Anglia, who said Jones' e-mail was referring only to the need to find a better way to chart the overall rise in temperatures at the time despite contradictory results coming from one measurement tool: the analysis of tree rings...[See the short podcast Climate Crock Sacks Hack Attack Part 1. This video discusses the hocky stick graph and the "hide the decline" e-mail.]

The consensus that man-made activities are the major cause of global warming is held by all the national science academies of all the major industrialized countries. It was first expressed by the United Nations in 2007, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90 percent or greater probability.

The opening salvo of the AIDS disinformation campaign was fired on 17 July 1983, when an obscure newspaper in India, the Patriot, printed an anonymous letter headlined “AIDS may invade India: Mystery disease caused by US experiments.” The letter, allegedly written by a “well-known American scientist and anthropologist” in New York, claimed that “AIDS…is believed to be the result of the Pentagon’s experiments to develop new and dangerous biological weapons.” (4)...

The 17 July letter’s extensive quoting of US sources—e.g., U.S. News & World Report, Associated Press, and Army Research, Development & Acquisition magazine—suggests that US-based KGB officers initiated the AIDS campaign, or at least collected the material that triggered the idea. The KGB had large residencies in New York City and Washington, DC, both of which were assigned officers who worked solely on active measures. (5)

Read the CIA's introduction here and the actual study by Thomas Boghardt here.

THE DISCLOSURE OF CLIMATE DATA FROM THE CLIMATIC RESEARCH UNIT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA:MEMORANDA AVAILABLEThe Committee have published on the internet all the submissions it has received in this inquiry ahead of Monday's oral evidence session: MemorandaThe Committee will hold the following oral evidence session in relation to its inquiry into the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia:Monday 1 March 20103.00pm The Rt Hon the Lord Lawson of Blaby, Chairman, and Dr Benny Peiser, Director, Global Warming Policy Foundation3.30pm Richard Thomas CBE, former Information Commissioner4.00pm Professor Edward Acton, Vice-Chancellor, University of East Anglia and Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit4.40pm Sir Muir Russell, Head of the Independent Climate Change E-Mails Review5.00pm Professor John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Julia Slingo OBE, Chief Scientist, Met Office, and Professor Bob Watson, Chief Scientist, Defra

Senator Inhofe should read this memorandum. Hopefully the shameless Senator and his denialist operatives on the blogs and in the media will absorb what the scientists are saying. Senator Inhofe should stop making a fool of himself and embarrassing our whole country by smearing real scientists as criminals. He sounds like a hysterical, hypocritical, antediluvian KGB-sponsored conspiracist stooge when he parades his ignorant junk science before the whole world and claims that global warming is a scientific hoax and a conspiracy to steal our money and seize more power. Really, I think it is the hypocritical Senator "Stooge" Inhofe and his financial sponsors who want more money and more power for themselves.

The denialists' hoax, dubbed "Climategate," reminds me of the KGB-sponsored "AIDS Made in America" hoax. According to the KGB's junk science conspiracy theory, cunning scientists in the U. S. Army made AIDS to kill black people. The KGB also promoted the crackpot "scientific" theory of "sluggish schizophrenia" in order to hospitalize political dissidents on fabricated grounds of mental illness.

The meretricious Senator "Stooge" Inhofe doesn't care one whit about about scientific truth; rather, he is undoubtedly persecuting our great scientists and mischaracterizing their research because he is in the pockets of powerful commercial and political interests.

I posted a bit of the submission below, but these links to read the submission and appendix.

Memorandum submitted by the University of East Anglia1. Introduction1.1 This memorandum is submitted by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Edward Acton, the University’s principal academic and administrative officer, with additional comment provided, where indicated, by the University’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).1.2 Freedom and Integrity of scientific researchThe University of East Anglia (UEA) was founded in 1963. For over forty-five years it has sought to identify fruitful fields for research and study, notably in the sciences, and to provide a free environment in which new and challenging research can flourish. It is now recognised as a world leader in several branches of the geophysical sciences, and it is understandably proud of that reputation.1.3 Like all British universities, it has a set of policies, regulations and codes of good conduct which UEA’s researchers are required to follow. At the heart of these is the requirement to maintain “honesty, openness, accountability and integrity.” Plagiarism, deception or the fabrication or falsification of results are regarded as serious disciplinary offences, and are a betrayal of the life of science.1.4 When assessing the quality of scientific research work, UEA relies first and foremost on critical evaluation by the international network of specialists working in each field. This “peer review” is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research: the scrutiny, probing, questioning and evaluation of the work of each scientist by other experts in the field. It is through peer review that scientific reputations and esteem are established, that competition for research funding is determined, and that editors decide which work to publish and which to reject.1.5 The Climatic Research UnitFour decades ago, UEA identified climate as an important field of study but one in which the data and methods used were primitive. In 1972 the University founded the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) which has played a pioneering role in advancing human ability to understand the world’s changing climate. It is part of a department with an international reputation.1.6 CRU’s contribution has included the compilation of a global land temperature record and the development of increasingly sophisticated methods by which to represent the average temperature of the globe and changes in that average over time. The evidence has steadily mounted of a marked increase in average global temperatures. This has given CRU’s work momentous political and social significance.1.7 We are well aware that research addressing issues with such profound implications for the human species is liable to trigger fierce debate. Moreover, we believe that such debate is a crucial and necessary part of the role of science in society. Currently there are deep concerns lest scientific analysis has exaggerated the rise in global temperature. But equally, there are fears that the rise may be underplayed, or dismissed altogether, by powerful commercial or political interests. [Read the CRU's full submission and appendix or the full submission in one document as published by the Parliament.]

Today, the University of East Anglia issued the following press release in order to correct false information published in the newspapers about their Climate Research Unit (CRU). Claims that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has found the UEA in breach of any part the Freedom of Information Act are incorrect. I have written about his here and here. This press release (2-26-10) appears on the (CRU) site:

Correspondence between University of East Anglia and the Information Commissioner's Office

With the agreement of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), we are publishing correspondence between the two organisations concerning a statement made by the ICO to the Sunday Times newspaper.

These confirm that no further evidence had been sought or obtained by the ICO with regard to an alleged breach of Section 77 and that with regard to the Section 50 complaint no decision notice had been issued and no alleged breaches had been put to the University for comment. Any assertion that the University has been found in breach of any part the Freedom of Information Act is incorrect. The ICO had not communicated with the University before issuing the statement and has still not completed any investigations into this matter. Media reports have been inaccurate.

The University regrets that the ICO statement has been interpreted by some to indicate that such an investigation has already been held and is pleased to set the record straight. The existence or otherwise of prima facie [my link] evidence is insufficient to reach any conclusions about this matter. We will cooperate fully with any investigation by the ICO and will provide every assistance to the Independent Review under Sir Muir Russell as they consider these issues further.

The publication of these letters follows the University's response to the Select Committee in which it states that 'On 22 January 2010, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) released a statement to a journalist, which was widely misinterpreted in the media as a finding by the ICO that UEA had breached Section 77 of the FOIA by withholding raw data. A subsequent letter to UEA from the ICO (29 January 2010) indicated that no breach of the law has been established; that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie [my link]; and that the FOI request at issue did not concern raw data but private email exchanges.

Climategate: Senator Inhofe and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Defamed and Persecuted Climatologist Dr. Phil Jones of the East Anglia University Climatic Research Unit (CRU)

Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma is spearheading a vicious and mendacious campaign to intimidate and repress brilliant scientists who study global warming. The Senator, his political operatives, and other opponents of anthropogenic global warming---the tabloid U.K. Daily Mail, Fox News, Pravda, Libertarians, 9-11 "Truthers," and computer hackers (criminals)---are using a noxious slurry of dirty tricks, disinformation, manipulation of the media, and illegal activity to discredit and destroy climate scientists.Senator Inhofe and other conspiracists in the denialist camp are depicting anthropogenic global warming as as a hoax perpetrated by scientists who are conspiring to steal our money and seize power.Senator Inhofe sounds like a Nazi ranting about the Jewish conspiracy or like a communist ranting about the underhanded schemes of coniving capitalists and rich kulaks. It's probably no accident that Senator Inhofe is also singing the same tune about global warming as the Russian tabloid Pravda and the lunatics who peddle junk science for the 9-11 Truth Movement (see my previous post).

Senator Inhofe's propaganda against the climate scientists sounds like that infamous anti-Semitic fabrication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Only now, the poor scientists are the Jews. He makes me so ashamed to have been a Republican. Of course, not all Republicans in the Senate agree with Senator Inhofe.

Senator Inhofe wants the Department of Justice to investigate scientists and even charge them with crimes. I think that Senator Inhofe is the one who should be investigated for lying to the American people, not the scientists.

The conspiracist Inhofe is nothing but an ignorant, arrogant, evil, meretricious prostitute who dresses as a demagogue, peddles junk science, and destroys the reputations of honest scientists.

In England, the climatologist Phil Jones at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia has been victimized by criminals who hacked into the CRU computer and posted stolen e-mails on the Internet. Some bloggers even suspect that the criminals are associated with Senator Inhofe since he knew about the hacking so quickly.

According to news reports, the hacker was using a computer on the East Coast of N. America when he stole the CRU e-mails. First, the hacker tried to post the stolen e-mails on a blog called Real Climate, but when he didn't succeed, the hacker posted the documents on the server in the Russian city of Tomsk. This server is used by the Tomsk State University. According to news reports, the Tomcity server belongs to a Russian Internet security business called Tomcity.

Now it seems that the hackers might have been Canadians or American denialists who seem to have a common cause with the powerful energy interests that rule Russia these days. Russia's President Medvedev is the former Chariman of the Board of Russia's giant natural gas and oil company Gazprom, and many former KGB officials hold important posts in Gazprom, which is half-owned by the Russian government and half owned by stockholders. Gazprom owns a lot of the media in Russia, too.

Senator Inhofe gets some of his junk science about global warming from the Russian scientist Andrei Kapitsa and from the Russian economist Andrei Illarionov, who used to be associated with Gazprom.

In Russia, powerful "natural monopolies" like Gazprom, which are staffed by former KGB officers, rule Russia. That's not freedom. That's a police state.

In America, we broke up some of these monopolies many decades ago because they exercised a stranglehold on the economy and had too much power. I think that was a good thing.

The Libertarians talk about liberty and free enterprise, but I don't believe them. Libertarians criticize big government, but they never seem to worry what would happen to our liberties and to our free enterprise system if we had a weak government controlled by large unregulated monopolies. I think that's why the Russian government/Gazprom likes the Libertarians.

Yesterday, the University of East Anglia published its submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Science and Technology. In this document, the British scholars explain in their own words what the global warming denialists mischaracterise and falsify.

Senator Inhofe should read what real scientists say before he makes an even bigger display of his junk science in the Senate.

I posted a bit of the University's submission to the Parliament below, but these links to read the submission and appendix.Memorandum submitted by the University of East Anglia

1. Introduction1.1 This memorandum is submitted by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Edward Acton, the University’s principal academic and administrative officer, with additional comment provided, where indicated, by the University’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

1.2 Freedom and Integrity of scientific researchThe University of East Anglia (UEA) was founded in 1963. For over forty-five years it has sought to identify fruitful fields for research and study, notably in the sciences, and to provide a free environment in which new and challenging research can flourish. It is now recognised as a world leader in several branches of the geophysical sciences, and it is understandably proud of that reputation.

1.3 Like all British universities, it has a set of policies, regulations and codes of good conduct which UEA’s researchers are required to follow. At the heart of these is the requirement to maintain “honesty, openness, accountability and integrity.” Plagiarism, deception or the fabrication or falsification of results are regarded as serious disciplinary offences, and are a betrayal of the life of science.

1.4 When assessing the quality of scientific research work, UEA relies first and foremost on critical evaluation by the international network of specialists working in each field. This “peer review” is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research: the scrutiny, probing, questioning and evaluation of the work of each scientist by other experts in the field. It is through peer review that scientific reputations and esteem are established, that competition for research funding is determined, and that editors decide which work to publish and which to reject.

1.5 The Climatic Research UnitFour decades ago, UEA identified climate as an important field of study but one in which the data and methods used were primitive. In 1972 the University founded the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) which has played a pioneering role in advancing human ability to understand the world’s changing climate. It is part of a department with an international reputation.

1.6 CRU’s contribution has included the compilation of a global land temperature record and the development of increasingly sophisticated methods by which to represent the average temperature of the globe and changes in that average over time. The evidence has steadily mounted of a marked increase in average global temperatures. This has given CRU’s work momentous political and social significance.

1.7 We are well aware that research addressing issues with such profound implications for the human species is liable to trigger fierce debate. Moreover, we believe that such debate is a crucial and necessary part of the role of science in society. Currently there are deep concerns lest scientific analysis has exaggerated the rise in global temperature. But equally, there are fears that the rise may be underplayed, or dismissed altogether, by powerful commercial or political interests. [Read the full submission and appendix.]

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995.

Two days later, the Russian tabloid Pravda (2-16-10), citing Fox News as their source, smirked:

Phil Jones Backs Out Of Global Warming Fuss.

The purveyors junk science came crawling out of the woodwork just in time to torpedo the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference. The scandal began when hackers, who hypocritically called themselves "honest men," broke into the computers of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University and posted stolen e-mails on the Internet to provoke a scandal; but now the deniers are exposing their ignorance and mendacity for the whole world to see.

The junk science tabloid Daily Mail (2-14-10) has falsely claimed that climatologist Dr. Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University "admitted" that "there has been no global warming since 1995."Fox News, other newspapers, and bloggers have also parroted this false claim. Fox News says, "We report, you decide," but that is a lie because Fox News misquoted and mischaracterized what Dr. Jones actually said. I have not seen them correct themselves, so I am not going to consider them a reliable source of news any more.

Since The Daily Mail (2-14-10) and Fox News have the resources to hire science reporters, I don't think their mischaracterization of Dr. Jones's words is simply a misunderstanding. These large media are capable of informing the public better than a conspiracist, anti-government, "9-11 Truth" outlet like the Rock Creek Free Press, which is infamous for its ignorant, anti-government, junk science articles. The Rock Creek Free Press seems to be in the far-left, old-fashioned communist, political spectrum; never-the-less, this "Truther" mouthpiece is depicting climate science as a conspiracy, just like the Daily Mail, Fox News, and the ringleader of the global warming denialists, Oklahoma's Senator Inhofe.

Remarkably, the Russian tabloid Pravda (2-16-10), who claim that their source was Fox News, actually managed to quote Dr. Jones slightly more accurately, although Pravda also falsely claimed that Dr. Jones was "now" making some admission of error. The Pravda article was titled "Phil Jones Backs Out Of Global Warming Fuss" (2-16-10), but Pravda actually did report:

The scientist behind the so-called "climate-gate" e-mail scandal now admits there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.

The tabloid Pravda was actually slightly more honest than the Daily Mail or Fox News.

If you read and understand the BBC (2-13-10) interview that the Daily Mail allegedly quoted, Phil Jones did not "admit" that "there has been no global warming since 1995." I have written previously about this big liehere and here.

BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?

Phil Jones: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

......

BBC: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?

Phil Jones: I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

First, the formerly private e-mails of the former director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England were hacked, leading to the so-called climategate scandal. And now, media everywhere are putting words in Jones's mouth, words that are the exact opposite of those he actually spoke.

In an interview with the BBC last week, Jones said he is "100-per-cent confident the climate has warmed," and "there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity."

One day later, the United Kingdom's Daily Mail newspaper's headline read: "Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995."

The fair and balanced FOX-News.com followed that up with a story saying that Jones "dropped a bombshell" in admitting "there has been no global warming over the past 15 years." Similar statements have now been repeated in media and blogs from around the world.

Now, how does "global warming" become "no global warming?" As the Center for Environmental Journalism explains, it's easy: When the media either don't, or choose not to, understand the concept of statistical significance.

Jones was asked specifically whether he agreed "that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically significant global warming." He replied: "Yes, but only just. I calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. The trend (0.12 C) is positive, but not significant at the 95-per-cent significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level."

Jones's "admission" then is merely that the observed warming is not statistically significant. This is far different from admitting there has been no warming -indeed, by acknowledging a positive trend, he was stating that scientists have observed warming.

The trouble here revolves around the concept of statistical significance. Simply put, a research result is considered statistically significant if it is highly unlikely to have occurred by chance. For a result to be significant at the 95-percent level -- the level accepted, by convention, in the sciences and social sciences -- the probability of the result occurring by chance has to be less than five per cent.

If the probability is greater than five per cent, then the result is considered insignificant. This is the case with global warming between 1995 and 2009.

According to Jones, there is a greater -- though not much greater -- than five-percent probability that the observed warming trend of 0.12 C occurred by chance.

Does this mean that the warming was just a chance event, that there has been no global warming?

No. Real warming may have occurred even if the observed warming is statistically insignificant. This is, in fact, quite possible given that Jones was speaking of a 15-year period -- a very short period, and it's extremely difficult to find significant results with a short period.

On the other hand, if the period is very large -- thousands of years, say -- then a very small change in temperature would be statistically significant.

Jones clearly recognizes this, as he told the BBC: "Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods and much less likely for shorter periods."

In other words, whether a change in temperature is statistically significant depends on more than the real change temperature -- sample size, or the period of time, is crucial.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Can AIDS Be Erradicated by Mass Prescription of Anti-Retroviral Drugs?

"Mass prescription of anti-retroviral drugs could eradicate the disease within 40 years...Blocking transmission can only be done with an extensive testing regime followed by rapid treatment with anti-retroviral drugs to everyone found to be HIV positive, [AIDS researcher Brian Williams] said."---The Independent (2-22-10)According to All Africa.com (2-22-10), the number of HIV- infected people in the U.S. is about 1 in 300; but in some "hot spots" like Washington, D.C., the number of HIV-infected people reaches 1 in 15. Perhaps 20-25% of HIV-infected people in the U.S. are unaware of their disease.

Fortunately, God has sent us brilliant scientists who are working on therapies and eventually even a cure for this dreaded disease. I expect that mendacious junk-science publications like the conspiracist Washington D.C. Rock Creek Free Press and other Truther-affiliated slanderers will twist this latest life-saving scientific discovery into yet another ignorant and lethal conspiracy theory that maligns scientists, drug companies, and the government.

The BBC (2-21-10) and The Independent (2-22-10) are reporting on a presentation by the famous AIDS researcher Brian Williams at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego.

Testing everyone at risk of HIV and treating them with anti-retroviral drugs could eradicate the global epidemic within 40 years, according to the scientist at the centre of a radical new approach to fighting Aids.

An aggressive programme of prescribing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to every person infected with HIV could stop all new infections in five years and eventually wipe out the epidemic, said Brian Williams of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis.Dr Williams is part of a growing body of experts who believe that anti-HIV drugs are probably the best hope of preventing and even eliminating the spread of Aids, rather than waiting for the development of an effective vaccine or relying solely on people changing their sexual lifestyle.

The idea will be tested in the coming year, with the start of the first properly controlled clinical trial involving thousands of people living in a part of South Africa with a high incidence of HIV and Aids. Dr Williams said this will be followed by similar trials in the US, where HIV is rampant among some inner-city communities."Our immediate best hope is to use ART not only to save lives but also to reduce transmission of HIV. I believe if we used ART drugs we could effectively stop transmission of HIV within five years," Dr Williams said. "It may be possible to stop HIV transmission and halve Aids-related TB within 10 years and eliminate both infections within 40 years," he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, California...

"The problem is that we are using the drugs to save lives, but we are not using them to stop transmission," Dr Williams said. Blocking transmission can only be done with an extensive testing regime followed by rapid treatment with anti-retroviral drugs to everyone found to be HIV positive, he said."The concentration of the virus drops 10,000 times [with ART] ... This probably translates into a 25-fold reduction in infectiousness. But if you did this it would be enough essentially to stop transmission," he said.A study published in 2008 showed that it is theoretically possible to cut new HIV cases by 95 per cent, from a prevalence of 20 per 1,000 to 1 per 1,000, within 10 years of implementing a programme of universal testing and prescription of ART drugs. [See full text.]

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Media Misquotes Climatologist Phil Jones

"But Mumble was different."--Happy FeetIf you weigh yourself every hour for a twenty-four hour period, it may be difficult to know if you are gaining or losing weight. Various factors such as how much water you have been drinking, when you ate your last meal, or when you last visited the bathroom will obscure the trend in your weight. But if you weigh yourself every day for a year, any upward or downward trend in your weight will be evident.

So it is with global warming: factors other than greenhouse gasses can affect the earth's temperature and make it difficult to measure the man-made global warming trend in the short term. Scientists call these other factors "noise." For example, the particulate matter from volcanic eruptions can keep some sunlight out.

A headline in the Daily Mail has spread like wildfire, claiming that Phil Jones, ex-director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, said "there has been no global warming since 1995". Not only did Phil Jones not say these words, this interpretation shows a poor understanding of the scientific concepts behind his words. To fully understand what Phil Jones was saying, one needs to read his actual words and understand the science discussed. Here is the relevant excerpt from the BBC interview:

BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?

Phil Jones: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

[A bit later the interviewer asks this question.]

BBC: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?

Phil Jones: I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

[Climate Skeptic explains] Phil Jones is saying there is a warming trend but it's not statistically significant. He's not talking about whether warming is actually happening. He's discussing our ability to detect that warming trend in a noisy signal over a short period. To demonstrate this, look at the HadCRUT temperature record from 1995 to 2009. The linear trend is that of warming. However, the temperature record is very noisy with lots of short term variability. The noisy signal means that over a short period, the uncertainty of the warming trend is almost as large as the actual trend. Hence it's considered statistically insignificant. Over longer time periods, the uncertainty is less and the trend is more statistically significant. [See the full explanation.]

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Bruce Ivins' Equivocal Denials

"Because I, I don’t like to hurt people, accidentally, in, in any way."---Dr. Bruce Ivins (FBI tape)Dr. Bruce Ivins probably did not intend for the anthrax to get loose in the postal system and accidentally kill random targets, because the creases in the letters suggest that he folded the letters around the anthrax in a pharmaceutical fold. I doubt that a terrorist organization would have warned its victims.

The surviving letters reveal that Dr. Ivins told some of his his intended victims to take penicillin, or he identified the powder in the envelope as anthrax; never-the-less, Dr. Ivins killed five innocent people.

The FBI appears to have tapes of Dr. Ivins making suspiciously equivocal denials about being the anthrax mailer to an unidentified witness and expressing "responsibility" for leaving the anthrax unlocked.

On June 5, 2008, Dr. Ivins had a conversation with a witness, during which he made a series of statements about the anthrax mailings that could best be characterized as "non-denial denials":Witness: "I’m trying to be supportive and understanding. But I guess a part of what you had said before to me in response to that was that, you know, there kind of seems to be another person at times. And if you don’t remember doing that, I mean [pause], don’t get mad [laugh], are you absolutely . . .?Bruce: "You were going to say how do I know that I didn’t have anything to do with...."Witness: "Yeah."Bruce: "I will tell that, I will tell you that it’s, I can’t pull that up. And a lot of times with e-mails, I don’t know that I sent an e-mail until I see it in the sent box. And it worries me when I wake up in the morning and I’ve got all my clothes and my shoes on, and my car keys are right beside there....And I don’t have it in my, in my, I, I can tell you I don’t have it in my heart to kill anybody."

* * *

Bruce: "And I, and I do not have any recollection of ever have doing anything like that. As a matter of fact, I don’t have no clue how to, how to make a bio-weapon and I don’t want to know."

* * *

Bruce: "The only reason I remember some of this stuff, it’s because there’s like a clue the next day. Like there’s an e-mail or, or, you know, when you’re, when you’re in bed and you’re like, you’re like this, you know, that’s, that’s not real fun. It’s like ‘oh shit, did I drive somewhere last night?’"

Witness: "Right, yeah, yeah, that must be awfully scary."

Bruce: "It really certainly is. Uh, because I can tell you, I am not a killer at heart."

The witness suggested that maybe Dr. Ivins should get hypnotized to help him remember, to which he replied that he would be terrified.

Bruce: "What happens if I find something that, that is like buried deep, deep, deep, and you know, like from, from my past or I mean...like when I was a kid or stuff like that you know?"

* * *

Bruce: "Oh, but I mean, you know, that would just, that would just like, like, like make me want to jump off a bridge. You know, that would be..."

Witness: "Oh no, no, me either, but I mean, unless there is a whole other side..."

Bruce: "Yeah."

Witness: "...that is buried down in there ..."

Bruce: "Yeah."

Witness: "...for whatever reason."

Bruce: "Because I, I don’t like to hurt people, accidentally, in, in any way. And [several scientists at USAMRIID] wouldn’t do that. And I, in my right mind wouldn’t do it [laughs]....But it’s still, but I still feel responsibility because it [RMR-1029] wasn’t locked up at the time...."

Friday, February 19, 2010

Amerithrax Case Closed: Ivins Acted Alone

"[T]he FBI [Amerithrax documents (scroll down)] show an increasingly agitated Ivins seeking to implicate colleagues while misleading investigators about his ability to make the deadly powder used in the attacks.

In a new disclosure, Justice officials released a transcript of a secretly taped conversation in which Ivins suggests that he might have committed acts that he could no longer recall.

'I, in my right mind, wouldn't do it,' Ivins is quoted as saying of the anthrax attacks in June 2008, weeks before his death. But he added, 'It worries me when I wake up in the morning and I've got all my clothes and my shoes on, and my car keys are right beside there.'

...A 96-page summary of the investigation concludes that Ivins hatched the anthrax-by-mail scheme in hopes of creating a scare that would rescue what he considered his greatest achievement, an anthrax vaccine program that he had helped create but that by 2001 was in danger of failing."--The Washington Post (2-20-10)Today the Justice Department, FBI, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service formally closed the Amerithrax case, the AP (2-19-10) is reporting. Thanks for a job well done!

Independent researcher Ed Lake,whohad been predicting that the Amerithrax case would be formally closed within days, will be discussing the newly-released evidence at his "Thoughts and Comments" link beginning with his February 19, 2010 post.

The NYT (2-19-20) observes:A 92-page report...laid out the evidence against Dr. Ivins, including his equivocal answers when asked by a friend in a recorded conversation about whether he was the anthrax mailer.“If I found out I was involved in some way...” Dr. Ivins said, not finishing the sentence. “I do not have any recollection of ever doing anything like that,” he said, adding, “I can tell you, I am not a killer at heart.” But in a 2008 e-mail message to a former colleague, one of many that reflected distress, Dr. Ivins wrote, “I can hurt, kill, and terrorize.” He added: “Go down low, low, low as you can go, then dig forever, and you’ll find me, my psyche.”

The report disclosed for the first time the F.B.I.’s theory that Dr. Ivins embedded in the notes mailed with the anthrax a complex coded message, based on DNA biochemistry, alluding to two female former colleagues with whom he was obsessed.

Justice Department and FBI Announce Formal Conclusion of Investigation into 2001 Anthrax AttacksThe Justice Department, FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service today announced that the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, which killed five individuals and sickened 17 others, has formally concluded.

Earlier today, representatives of the FBI and Justice Department provided a 92-page investigative summary along with attachments to victims of the attacks, relatives of the victims and appropriate committees of Congress. This document sets forth a summary of the evidence developed in the "Amerithrax" investigation, the largest investigation into a bio-weapons attack in U.S. history. As disclosed previously, the Amerithrax investigation found that the late Dr. Bruce Ivins acted alone in planning and executing these attacks.The investigative summary and the attachments are now accessible to the public and have been posted to the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/amerithrax under the Freedom of Information Act. In addition, roughly 2,700 pages of FBI documents related to the Amerithrax case are now accessible to the public and have been posted to the FBI website at http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/amerithrax.htm under the Freedom of Information Act.The Amerithrax Task Force, which was comprised of roughly 25 to 30 full-time investigators from the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and other law enforcement agencies, as well as federal prosecutors from the District of Columbia and the Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Section, expended hundreds of thousands of investigator work hours on this case. Their investigative efforts involved more than 10,000 witness interviews on six different continents, the execution of 80 searches and the recovery of more than 6,000 items of potential evidence during the course of the investigation. The case involved the issuance of more than 5,750 grand jury subpoenas and the collection of 5,730 environmental samples from 60 site locations.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Missing Evidence Surfaces in Anna Mae Aquash Murder Case

"A Jan. 21 letter from Denver Police Commander of Major Crimes Jonathyn Priest to Robert Mandel, assistant U.S. attorney in Rapid City, revealed the Jan. 11 discovery of the 'Aquash' box and outlined some of the missing evidence, court documents show."--Native American Times (2-17-10)[See alsoNews from Indian Country (2-17-2010)]Evidence relating to the 1975 murder of the Canadian Indian Anna Mae Aquash (above), reportedly executed on the orders of the leadership of the American Indian Movement (AIM), has been found in the basement of the Denver police Department.

The box reportedly contains about 800 pages of documents and about 20 tape recordings.

One of those recordings is reportedly an interview between Denver investigator Abe Alonzo and two government witnesses. One of those witnesses will reportedly testify against Marshall.

Thirty-four years after Annie Mae Aquash’s frozen body was found on a South Dakota Indian reservation, the federal case against a man accused of assisting in her killing has been further delayed due to the discovery of a box of evidence in the basement of the Denver Police Department.

The attorney for Richard Marshall says the collection of files and recordings labeled “Aquash” – whose existence police revealed to prosecutors in late January – are new to the case.

Marshall is charged with murder and aiding and abetting in the death of Aquash, who moved to the Pine Ridge Reservation from Nova Scotia in 1973 during the American Indian Movement’s 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee. Prosecutors say AIM leaders suspected she was an FBI informant and ordered her killing in 1975. Prosecutors have said she was not working for the government.Marshall’s trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday in Rapid City, but defense attorney Dana Hanna asked for more time to review the new information. On Thursday U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol ordered from the bench that the trial be moved to April 13...

Denver police have acknowledged some records from the case were destroyed in 2001. In December, Piersol ordered prosecutors to contact Denver authorities to determine what evidence was gathered and what evidence was destroyed.A Jan. 21 letter from Denver Police Commander of Major Crimes Jonathyn Priest to Robert Mandel, assistant U.S. attorney in Rapid City, revealed the Jan. 11 discovery of the “Aquash” box and outlined some of the missing evidence, court documents show. The government delivered about 800 pages of documents and about 20 tape recordings Wednesday, Hanna said...

One of those recordings was an interview between Denver investigator Abe Alonzo and two government witnesses, Hanna said. One of those witnesses is expected to testify against Marshall. [See full text.]

Monday, February 15, 2010

The BBC Interviews Global Warming Scientist Dr. Phil Jones

"I wish people would spend as much time reading my scientific papers as they do reading my e-mails."---Dr. Phil JonesThe BBC (2-13-10) has posted an interview with the anthropomorphic global warming expert Dr. Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Dr. Jones is the central figure in the so-called "Climategate" scandal.

Analysis by the Guardian and digital forensics experts suggests that an outside hacker gained access to a server at the UEA which held backups of CRU emails and a collection of staff documents. It also suggests the access occurred over a period of days, if not weeks, and was carried out from a computer based on the east coast of north America.

...someone with clear hacking skills...grabbed the files, then they broke into the RealClimate blog to upload the archive and prepare a draft post; then, when that was thwarted, they uploaded it to a Russian website, and posted links to it on climate sceptics' blogs using web servers located in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.That sequence of events led Sir David King, the government's former chief scientist, to say that it must have been "carried out by a team of skilled professionals, either on behalf of a foreign government or at the behest of anti-climate change lobbyists in the United States". But he quickly backed away from that statement, admitting he had no inside information.

The theory of anthropomorphic global warming is being characterized by some politicians, journalists, and bloggers as a "socialist" hoax to steal our money and even seize political power. Actually, this claim sounds a lot to me like the old communist trick of inciting people against "greedy capitalists." In reality, it is the hackers, who hypocritically characterized themselves as "honest men," who are the thieves. Why should I believe what thieves say about global warming?

I am confident that Dr. Jones and the science of anthropomorphic global warming will be vindicated. When this so-called "Climategate" scandal began, I decided to educate myself. It didn't take me long to see that the "denialists" are dishonest people who are not interested in scientific truth; rather, they are interested in persecuting scientists. The world's academies of sciences all accept anthropomorphic global warming. I think they are a lot more reliable than bloggers who can't even spell or gutter journalists such as the arrogant bullyJames Delingpole or the dishonest fabricatorChristopher Booker.